becoming more human by becoming more godlike 397activities, the hold of each of the irreparable defects of life on our expe-
rience of life is temporarily suspended. Insatiable desire comes, for a
while, to rest: it fi nds an object and an expression that seem adequate to
our context- transcending humanity.
In such engagement, we respond to our groundlessness by means
of activities that command our attention and generate their own
terms of reference and of justifi cation. If ever there were truth in the
idea of creating meaning in a meaningless world, it would be in such a
circumstance.
In this situation of total abandon to all- consuming activity, we are
released for a while from the bonds of time. It is the closest acquain-
tance we can ever hope to have with the timeless. At the limit, it abol-
ishes both the selective memory of the past and the anticipation, or
apprehension, of the future and places us in an eternal present, from
which our time- obsessed conscious life drives us out.
Th e repair of the incurable defects of human existence by these oc-
casional experiences of self- abandonment to what elicits passion is,
however, not for keeps. We do not in fact abolish, by virtue of such ex-
periences, our mortality, our groundlessness, or our insatiability. Th e
sense of overcoming that may attend these activities is in fact a halluci-
nation. Life waits outside, once the passion is spent and the spell is
broken, in the prose of reality. It is only on the condition of acknowl-
edging and accepting our mortality and our groundlessness that we
can possess it undiminished. What we saw and experienced in the
moments of absorption must, to enhance that life, meet the test of
transformative vision: it must survive routine and repetition in the
experience of the individual, and penetrate and change the arrange-
ments of society.
Th e course of life: mutilation
Th e marks of life— surfeit, fecundity, and spontaneity— reveal the in-
defi nite range of experience and initiative of which, barring great mis-
fortune, every individual human being is capable. Part of the condition
of embodied spirit is to enjoy such acquaintance with many ways of
being and many forms of consciousness.